In 2021 HPV was awarded a preservation and access grant from the Hawaii Council for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities to start digitizing HPV's photograph collection. Due to COVID lockdown and supply chain issues, project implementation and completion was delayed. However, in August 2023 the project requirements were completed.
Yoshiko Yamauchi was the project director, Gina Vergara-Bautista was the project archivist and Clement Bautista was the project humanities expert. A group of dedicated volunteers scanned thousands of photographs and their metadata from three collections: The Friends of Waipahu Cultural Garden Park Collection, the Oahu Sugar Company Collection and the Murakoshi Collection.
After scanning, the digitized images are being cataloged and prepared for online access. However, work continues since thousands of photographs remain to be scanned and cataloged.
